>>258892052First jumpscare I saw in a while was in P.T and big part of it was there as no fucking music leading up to it that peaks and basically acts as a countdown to the scare, as is normal in games/films these days.

Seriously, who thought big suspense building music was a good idea to lead up to a jump scare, because it being perfectly timed is basically saying HERE IS THE SCARE BRACE YOURSELVES.

Feelings of anxiety and despair. Doesn't matter what kind of scare, as long as it gives you said feelings. Naturally, that varies between people, so that's why some shit on X type scare and others on Y type scare.

I think "jump scare" is a bit of an oxymoron, since scares are, at least to my knowledge, abrubt by nature. I think there is a higher form of horror than just throwing scares at the player/audience, as in creating an atmosphere of fear that sticks with you through the entire experience, which may or may not include scares.

>>258892052Take your pic for example. 5NAF would still be plenty scary if the robots didn't all pop up and make that fucking SCREEEE sound when they grab you.

Let's say you run out of power. Same thing happens as in the regular game up to a point. Toredores starts playing, you see the eyes, then everything goes dark and quiet. All you can hear are occasional footsteps and Freddy's "dum dee dum". Then a robot or two walks in and grabs you. Hell, they could even still pop up if they want, but instead of the camera just going to static, how about showing you getting dragged off and/or shoved into a suit. Maybe something gory like the stroggification in Quake 4.

About [email protected], it was actually good at building atmosphere. But five nights wears on the gimmick pretty quick. It's either having multiple nights or having jack shit in content. At least you can dick around with the bot AI at the end so there's some replay value (in a game sense)

In a general sense atmosphere > "jump scares", but it's more of whether you want the feeling to be immediate or to wear on you slowly over time.

So there are good jumpscares that involve atmosphere, okay then where does it go from there? Cause the best scares are still jumpscares, they just had good buildup, how can you just have eerie atmosphere that goes nowhere?

>>258892052The tone/atmosphere leading up to the scare needs to be consistent with the rest of the game. If the whole game has been action-oriented, then when things get peaceful you know there is going to be a scare.

Was anyone truly scared when playing Silent Hill games? Or were they just "omg this is kinda spooky", and then went on to rave about it because it was a good experience, and just claiming that it was scary on some level?

Only time I remember getting scared was silent hill 4, when I looked out the window and a bunny head just randomly floats by the window, there was no sound but it was a jumpscare because there was no reason to see it coming, and I remember that more than pretty much anything in the whole silent hill series.

>>258892052The best scares come from making you feel comfortable.>playing re2>enter the two-way mirror rooms plenty of times>both sides are clear of enemies>eventually gain acess to an item on the side with the reflective mirror(can't see what's on the other side)>fucking licker pops out of the mirror and wrecks me

The Penumbra games from the developer behind amnesia are fucking good. The first one relies on a really shitty combat system a little too much but other than that they're damn good. I personally was massively disappointed by amnesia. Didn't find it scary at all as it was pretty obvious when anything at all scary was about to happen.

>>258895429oh hell yeahthe body falling in the other school in SH1The random stomp noises in the other hospital in SH1The manequinn scene in SH3, i was like OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCKthe prison bath room stomp scene in sh2a lot of moments

Jump scares are a brief moment of fear followed by limitless being-mad for me. It's like fear-rape.

When a game/movie/story sucks you in with an unsettling mood and keeps you on-edge the whole time, that's awesome. Fear-foreplay. Every story gets one jump-scare and it needs to earn it. Otherwise it's a waste of everyone's time.

>>258892052Scary games are difficult to make, but Jump scares arent scary. They make you jump, not scared. You shouldnt be making horror games if you cant make horror.

One good tactic I know to scare people is to put them under tension, a lot of tension. Have a character following you, and you need to perform some kind of action thats very clunky and fidgety. So for example, you got this big guy coming for you. You need to lock to the door, you can see him getting closer, you try to pull up the lock but it slips down. He's getting far too close. Its that last second type thing thats really scary.

A good example Im sure we've all experienced. Swimming through shark waters onto a boat. Theres so much of that last second tension, and its pretty terrifying

Jumpscares alone aren't what make a horror game scary, and they don't make a horror game bad. I think that [email protected] is an excellent horror game because of the sense of unease and paranoia you get throughout, trying to AVOID the jumpscares.

The jumpscares are punishment for losing. You never get them for no reason. They're only there to facilitate the fear and tension in the rest of the game.

There are times when Nemesis on RE3 just jumps out of a window out of nowhere to fight you. Thats an actual good jump scare because there was no JUMP SCARE MUSIC but most important because by then you alrready are afraid of Nemesis. Later on you hear he banging in a door then he says STARS and just leaves, you shit yourself because you know he found a way to get to you

>>258892052Jumpscares are good in moderation. When a game relies only on jump scares, that's when it sucks though. Real scary is when you expect the jump, but it never happens, leaving you tense and on edge.

Jump scares need to be built off of tensionTension is what makes a game goodName the best part of Dead Space 2, most people would say the return to the Ishimura. Why? Because you're walking through empty halls that you've been through before, waiting for something to come out, you go through most of the ship before you even encounter an enemy. But you get the feeling that they're somewhere in there.

Modern horror games don't understand tension, they think that all they need to do is throw something at you from a closet and all of the sudden you're scared.Five nights does it well, because it builds up this tension of watching the enemies, and the jump scare comes from the culmination of everything.Slender does it poorly, because it's just LOL SPOOPY SCARE out of nowhere.

>>258894601*goreI was honestly hoping that there would be more art of the security guard getting forced into a suit and having his eyeballs pop out the front. Or Foxy bitting some little shit's head off during the Bite of '87

>>258899815You know it's funny that while Five Nights at Freddy's has jump scares, it's more unnerving to know that they are moving your way but you can't anticipate how quickly. Foxy is a wonderful feature because you have to watch him but not too much and he'll come charging. His scare isn't so much of a jump scare though as knowing you fucked up.

>>258900043The thing I personally hated about five nights is the movement of the characters at the end, when they kill you. They start off with very slow, mechanical and unnatural movements, like an old machine should be. By the end, they are moving too human like, all springy and smooth. It doesnt fit the theme for me, they feel too alive, which just ruins it for me.

If the character just slowly inched into the room, staring at you, and then just knocked you out with a thud, that'd be much more freaky that a quick and fluent jump

>>258892052one good way to be scary is to take all of the power away from the player. a run and hide scenario with an unkillable mosnter can be terrifying without having any jump at all. being hunted or chased is scary as fuck if you do it right.

>like..creepy shit like the random faces appearing in exorcist? without sound?

Considering that the Exorcist is the greatest horror film of all time, yes. Hell, even The Shining did that equally as good. You don't need a loud scream to make people scared, a silent but quick flash at something disturbing is much more scary than any screamer or jump scare ever.

Video games can easily the same things as this, but they refuse to for no reason:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD0RJ_iuBPo

For example, while not really a scary game, when you're just doing a seemingly calm swim level in Alice...a giant fuckin fish out of nowhere with a loud noise to accompany it..that's a pretty good scare, nothing to really make you scream..but a good startle.

>>258900527Once again though, like jump scares, that cannot be the primary scare mechanic. Having it in the game, like jump scares, is great, but if the game is classed as horror for that mechanic alone, its unlikely to get many scares, out of me at least. (Not implying Im a braver person than most)

>>258892052Dead Space imo did good scares well. The spooky thing in that game was not the jumpscares, which did exist and sometimes popped up, but the overall ambiance and situation around you.

Throughout the entirety of the game you can hear these ambient noises, like Necros crawling through walls, whispers, screams in the distance and a bunch of other shit, setting up a real nice spooky mood when coupled with the blood and the writing on the walls of the ship.

Scares in that game also come from shadows or hallucinations, which makes you wonder 'shit is that thing real or am I gonna waste my already shitty resources?'

I don't think you could say Dead Space was the SCARIESTGAMEOMG but it was a good contender if you set the sound up high and listened to everything the game had to offer.

Take Dead Space 1 for an example. People who didn't play it say it's a carnival haunted house with nothing but jumpscares, but those who played it know the feeling of dread and paranoia that entering a new place gave.

Also, what other kind of scare there is? Look at this little gem in Dead Space 1. It doesn't attack you, it doesn't harm you in any way, it doesn't even jump at you.

>Creepy images of the monsters just staring at you>You have to track their movements and watch as they slowly get closer and closer to you>You have limited power, so your only defense against them is finite.>Only when you die do you get a screamer, or 'jump scare'>HURR THIS GAME IS NOTHING BUT JUMP SCARES.

One or two good jump scares at the beginning of the game will knock the player off guard, and from then on everytime they hear an extra footstep, or barely see something out of the corner of their eye they'll get scared on their own. Jump scares are great to help establish an atmosphere, but can't be the primary mechanic of the game.

If you want a film example of amazing tension building / horror moments look at a movie like The Thing. It arguably has just one jump scare that is so well done and integral to the context of the scene that it's passable though.

If you want a video game example of horror without jump scares you can look at System Shock.

>>258901557Well thats because thats really what the core horror mechanic is. Take out the jump scares and its a freaky game but isnt really scary. I mean with them in it isnt scary, it just makes you jump

>>258900527>one good way to be scary is to take all of the power away from the player. a run and hide scenario with an unkillable mosnter can be terrifying without having any jump at all. being hunted or chased is scary as fuck if you do it right.

I almost completely disagree. Introducing an unkillable monster in a game of killable monsters can be a good mechanic, because you have a point of comparison - this is the one you can't kill, and if you can't kill it, that implies it's here to completely fuck your shit up.

If the entire game is Amnesia-tier run from the spooky walking game over screen, it completely takes everything out of the game for me. I feel very aware that I'm playing a videogame with a game over mechanic should I fail to move to the designated hiding point or what-have-you in order to escape the monster. Player agency is important, and neutering that player agency to give a feeling of impotency in the face of a new threat is a great way to inject fear into the player.

The most spooked I have ever been was a survival horror game on the original xbox, you were in a haunted prison or something and there were creatures with blades for arms and shit that did this really unsettling crawling animation

I can't remember the name, I think I've mostly blocked it from my memoryBut I don't recall that many jump scares, it was more genuinely unsettling stuff, and just barely seeing things out of the corner of your eye.

>>258901842As I also said to someone, dont you find their movement kind of annoying. These are supposed to be old, clunky machines, and they act and sound like that, until they get you, at which point suddenly they become all loose and springy and smooth, like a human would move. Its like, they are supposed to move like a slower, more sinister C3PO. Imagine C3PO moving like a human, without those stiff joints, it wouldnt produce the same, roboty effect

>>258897015Playing off the primal, subconscious fear of things that might be poisonous isn't any more clever than jump scares. Especially when you encounter one that's big enough to kill and/or eat you (or your avatar).

>>258901302It takes good design to pull those kinds of things off more than once, and it also takes context to do it often.

Silent Hill gets away with it due to The Otherworld, meaning weird, creepy yet fascinating shit can appear there and you can feel conflicting emotions of fascination and terror by looking at the crazy shit you find in the environment.

Finding things like the bag in RE4 that is too small to be an adult human, and writhes around like crazy until you shoot it, with no real explanation as to what the cock that was - those come out of seemingly nowhere and aren't fully explained or mentioned again. That's why they're memorable. You've already experienced your first regenerator, and now they have the context of being an enemy by that point. The bag? Straight outta strangetown.

>>258892052>faggots keep saying "all jump scares are bad"I think I disagree. Jump scares can work really well. The trick is to build a menacing atmosphere and then give a jump. Then the person watching/playing gets used to the buildup and then the payoff. They become accustomed to the rhythm, it stops getting scary and you switch it up on them. Right after they come down from a jump scare, hit them again, harder. They aren't ready for it. Or maybe just have no jump at all.

Jump scares fail when the player can predict them or when the correct amount of tension hasn't been built.

>>258902245Not really, in most modern games there is an enemy, in a lot of them impending doom, without it being horror. They need to make the actual enemies scary, and jump scares is the cheap way to do that. You're saying that if you replace the animatronics with zombies, it would produce the same horror effect

A guy once said that there MUST be jump scares because otherwise if the player know there are none he wouldn't get scared just by the atmosphere, but I'm a pussy so even if there are no jump scares and only creepy atmosphere I would still keep shitting myself the whole way through.

Just wanted to make a note that a game doesn't have to have scares to be scary.

On another note, my favorite type is the scare the player creates himself. Just add an enemy, some steps and breathing SFX and stuff like that, and no need to pre-program jump scares, just let the player accidentally find the monster after opening a door or peaking through a crack in the wall and you don't even need to make the monster roar or anything, scare 100% guaranteed. Even if they never look at it, the SFX will make they constantly alert about the presense of the monster, which is tense as fuck.

>>258900342I normally like Leo's stuff, but him recording his gameplay footage followed by clearly recording his dialogue afterwards is a really shitty way to try and get his point across.

I've played [email protected] to the 7th night and watched a fair few streams, and some of the scares still get me sometimes. For Leo to be acting like he's the goddamn Fonz and saying "Oh wow, a jumpscare, pfft try harder kiddo" is really lame. I understand the point he's trying to get across, but he could be less fucking lazy and try reviewing the damn thing instead of pretending that this is legit footage.

And if by some ridiculous turn of events it actually is real footage, he's too desensitised to jumpscares and I feel bad for his overall horror experience.

>>258902637False, in your typical horror game enemies can kill you, but there are relative safe spots. You clear a hall way and you know nothing more is going to spawn and come spook you.

The core spook mechanic in this is not the jump scare, it's the fact that something is coming to fuck you from the moment the game starts and you cant stop it, you can only stave it off with finite battery power.

Take The Hunter from Dead Space 1 as an example. The one monster you can't kill by any usual means, because he always regenerates.

Or the Regenerator from RE4.

(Although to a lesser extent) The Tank from L4D.

Or the all time classic ... (picture related)

Adding invincible monsters out of nowhere can really fuck with a player's mind. When you finally get used to fighting in a horror game, most of the horror disappears. Throwing a "real" monster will give the player a renewed sense of fear, because now he's back to running.

>>258892052I can't remember the name of it, but there was an RPGmaker game where you ran from a big blue asshole. The scare wasn't a "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA WHERE ALL THE MEXICAN WOMEN AT" scare, you were constantly being pursued and you had no idea when or where it would catch up to you.

I want a game where you are constantly being pursued, and you have to outrun the monster, but it always knows where you are, and all you can do is try to buy time to escape.

Atmosphere is the best kind of horror. Let the player become scared of the environment, and their own abilities, like in real life. STALKER and shit like Call of Cthulhu DCotR will always be the superior horror games to shit like Outlast.

>>258902964But as I said, thats not a horror mechanic, thats just the game mechanic. That doesnt make the game a horror, as I said replace that with zombies and it doesnt produce the same effect. DayZ isnt a horror, but you cannot stop the zombies, since they respawn. You cant win, you can just stave off death. Minecraft isnt a horror, but you will eventually die, you just fight off death. I agree its something that is a good tactic for horrors, but it cant be the primary horror mechanic

>>258903097The problem with those enemies is that the fail to instill a sense of horror, so much as a sense of urgency. You want to get out of the room because you know it will be game over if you dont, not because holy fuck thats a creepy fucker.

>>258899137>One good tactic I know to scare people is to put them under tension, a lot of tension. Have a character following you, and you need to perform some kind of action thats very clunky and fidgetyReminded me of SCP Containment Breach. While blinking is just matter of pressing the space bar (or waiting until the auto-blink timer runs out) you're forced to have your focus on the thing at all times. You can never ignore the fact that you're being followed by two fuckers who play by completely different rules in addition to having all the other mystical and dangerous shit down there with you as well.

It's not just enough to randomly run away or hide in one room since then the other SCPs will just have their way with you. Players has to be constantly on the move.

>>258903409I simply disagree with you in this regard Anon. Be them zombies or not, is irrelevant. In every single game you mentioned, you can kill the enemy. You cannot kill the enemy in Five Nights. You'll never fully neutralize the threat of enemies in DayZ or Minecrat, they will always be coming. But you can defeat the mob and be relatively safe for a time. There is no saftey in Five Nights, they are coming and you can't kill them, you can only hope to survive until the night ends. This is the core horror mechanic.

Like I said, I don't think we're going to be able to agree on this issue.

>You could play any loud noise after a sudden relative quiet and achieve the same effect.

No you fucking couldn't.

All that creepiness that a game plays up? It's to make you scared that something is going to jump at you, and by having a game actually produce a jumpscare not only works as a playoff for the atmosphere that was built (as >>258894913 says jumpscares are the punchline). But it then validates that fear as you re-continue playing.

my fear for the deep sea comes from playing Ecco at a young age, and the fear being further solidified from Ape Escape in one of the beginning worlds where you have to cross a lake with a gigantic electric fishing hunting you downand near the end of the lake you can see another humongous fish all the way at the bottom of the lake, ot doesnt do shit though but sit there, if you swim to it's depths though it will harm you

Every Regenerator I faced my first playthrough (and on the first few subsequent times through) of RE4 spooked the absolute shit out of me. The twitching, the breathing, the not-quite-human-but-that-thing-must-have-been-fucking-human design. I wanted that shit dead.

Especially when you get locked in the freezer with one and HAVE to take it out. Your fight-or-flight instinct immediately gets kicked in the balls and you have to fight or get fucked, and when I didn't wanna be anywhere near one of those messed up things, that really screwed with me.

>>258892052an incredibly creepy, unnerving, disturbing atmosphere. with, for example, monsters that appear in the far distance closing up on you fast, instead of instantly popping up in front of you.basically, like most horror games act bar the jump scares to rustle my autism.

>>258903732I think you are confused. Suprise =/= fear, it never has and never will. Let's say you hear glass break late at night, the sound of the glass breaking surprised and startled you... but the thought of who/what caused that to happen and what the intention is is scary

>>258903441Deep down, a good horror game should make you feel that. If you're audacious enough, given the choice to fight or run, you'll always choose fight, because there's a chance. But when a game forces you to run, takes away all your power and makes you feel the thrill of being hunted, that's when biological horror comes into play. The fear of death.

>>258903948>Play WoW>Under water>Get to the edge of the zone>There is a tench that just drops off for miles.>Fuck it, I'm going in>10 minutes later>Water is murky as fuck>Can't even see the surface anymore>'Stamina' bar appears over me indicating I'm going to die>Keep going down>My fucking face the whole time

I didn't know what I was expecting to see down there, but just going made me nervous as all fuck

The worst is when you have a scripted chase that ends in a cutscene of you slamming a door where you haven't actually done anything but reach the goal point, and the only real way to fail the chase is to stop entirely.

Introducing something big and fucking dangerous in that the only thing your character can now do is RUN is a pretty good way to instill dread. The Bear from Condemned 2 is a good example.

I.E: >It's a fucking bear. >You are in a restaurant full of tables between you and the staircase up. >Run.

i agree, not a ton of things attempting to startle you, but just a very grimy, dirty feeling, like a ball in your stomach. the suffering did that feeling very well, surrounded by some of the sickest characters in gaming

Good scares are psychological scares. Try out Silent Hill 2, very little about the game is jump scares and it's more about going into rooms you don't want to go into, seeing the scenery around you change, walking past a "dead body" on the ground multiple times, etc.

>>258904401I can't really agree with this at all. Sure it all sounds good on paper, but in real life you don't get a fight or flight response after the first meeting with an invincible enemy, you get a "Fuck, I hate these annoying sections" response from essentially having a time escape objective.

>>258904650But you're implying that you know in advance whether or not something can "get you". I mean, you can, but that'd mean you read spoilers about the game or you played it before, which kind of defeats the purpose of playing a horror game.

>>258904876>you don't get a fight or flight response after the first meeting with an invincible enemy, you get a "Fuck, I hate these annoying sections" response from essentially having a time escape objective.

I think that one's all on you, man. I haven't ever felt that like when immersed in a game. I don't remember meeting an invincible enemy and thinking "Aw man, my bullets don't work on it so obviously I have to either run away or just find the thing that kills or disables it. Whatever. Game mechanics man." - I've thought "WELL THAT'S NOT GOOD. TIME TO FUCKING GET OUT. NO THANKS. NOT TODAY. BYE."

>>258904876Well, that's because you're thinking of the game as a game. You can always rationalize with that mindset. If you're playing a horror game and at any point you think "God, I hate these sections." then it's either A.) A really shitty game with no immersion or B.) Your fault for not getting into the game.

>>258905592At the end of the day, you gotta ask yourself, when I go to bed will I be shitting myself at this? Because jump scares, your gonna say no, something thats actually scary is still scary when the game is closed down

Anyone here play Obscure 1 for the XBOX/PS2? I found it quite good. It had jumpscares, sure, but it relied mostly on tension and helplnessness. If you were out of ammo when facing a big baddy, welp, go fuck yourself, run.

There's nothing wrong with a good jumpscare from time to time, but if that's what you rely on to make your game, or movie for that matter, scary, then you're doing something wrong. When it's the atmosphere and setting that's freaking you out, when the anticipation of something happening is making you more scared than the actual things, that's what a good scare is. A jumpscare can make you jump in your seat but it doesn't necessarily "scare" you, you need to have all the other stuff for that.

The Thing>the acting is so 80s it hurts>scifi plot is silly as shit>trite "WHICH ONE OF US IS THE MONSTER" shit>bad pacing>no real atmosphere, it just flaunts a bunch of plastic gore effects in your face>the effects haven't even aged>shoehorned racial tension near the end>all the mistrust between the character feels forced, probably because the acting isn't great

Alien>acting is actually good, so it isn't tied to a particular decade>favors showing over telling with its plot>excellent pacing, equal parts mystery, tension and danger>excellent atmosphere thanks to meticulously designed sets>the effects have aged very well because they try to show as little of the aliens as possible>only exception being the spaceship scenes, like where the alien gets ejected>genuine mistrust and frustration between the characters, like when Lambert is pissed at Ripley

>>258905617This. The only things that frighten me anymore are stuff like in WoW or a few other games where you swim out really far into the "fatigue zone" and the land gives way, and if you swim down far enough everything turns black (because light can't reach that far down or whatever); that shit is absolutely frightening as fuck

OP, I prefer the uneasiness caused by say, objects being slightly distorted and looking just "wrong" enough that my brain says "this isn't right, but I don't know why" whether that's because of weird lighting, shadows in the wrong place, doorframes that just slightly curve instead of being straight, or if objects in a room change their position just slightly when I'm not looking at them

jump scares are shit, but games can't really achieve actual fear anywaya good fright would put you in the mood and slowly build up your tensionmake you legitimately afraidnot shit popping out and saying boo

Something is scary when it invokes a sense of danger. If it does not, it can at most be creepy.

Silent Hill 3 is scary to me because the monsters are a genuine threat. The atmosphere, environments, sound and everything else revolve around that and compliment it. Games like Penumbra or Amnesia, think of them what you will, are scary.

Silent Hill 2, while brilliant in the story and atmosphere department, failed to scare me most of the time. The scariest part by far were the first 10 minutes when you're walking down the road to the town. Anything can happen, anything can suddenly leap out at you from the fog.. But then the monsters turn out to be ineffective and merely creepy more than anything. and from then on, you just don't believe you'll ever find yourself in a genuine emergency.

>>258906562You obviously went into it not wanting to like it, and if you think today's "acting" is good, you're a child and probably grew up in the 90s or some shit.

You also need to understand that The Thing pretty much invented / popularized "which one of us is the monster", it's like criticizing Half Life for not being as good as games that copied and improved upon it.

>>258906343No, that's a cheap as fuck jump scare. That's like playing tetris and a bloody, screaming face pops up. If you're gonna have jump scares, then the moment at least needs to be tense and unnerving.

>>258892052Atmosphere.Basically, if they game feels "heavy" and puts you under a lot of long-term pressure, it leaves you with a good feeling of "decompression" after you finish playing it.Jump scares simulate this poorly by forcing the pressure through the player anticipating when's the next "OOGABOOGA I'M A MONSTER" gonna pop out.

The best scares (and monsters) are those that never actually appear. Take, for instance, the game Scratches. Its adventure mechanics were lackluster at best (with you having absolutely no idea wtf you are even supposed to do for the better part of the game), but boy did it manage to scare me. Fun thing is, you're told that there's something scary in that old house, and you hear strange sounds at night, and you have crazy dreams, but you don't ever see anything.

And then you find the key to the basement and this starts playinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_8UyMzms10

>watch someone play the P.T. demo>absolutely nothing happens for a long time>all of the sudden a woman attacks you>she doesn't come out of the corner>she doesn't slowly descend on you>you don't hear her coming>she literally appears on you

>>258906903Good post; I'll only say that while a Scare is invigorating and thus perhaps more "fun" or "good" (the way a roller coaster is "fun"), Dread really pulls you into the setting and situation which is quite a bit more immersive, compared to the Scare that only lasts a moment.

I think FNaF does Jump Scares right; it only happens as a Defeat condition, not as a cheap tactic thrown at you often to keep your heart racing

>>258907137Did you even read my post? I said you're constantly going through dark and creepy places, implying that there IS a sense of tension, because you don't know if something's going to pop out or not. What you described is like that shitty maze game you get your friends to play while you watch them, a la 2 Girls 1 Cup.

>>258900580https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_4mdGA9ehk There's a lot game devs can learn from The Exorcist about creating scaring people without the need for loud noises. Look at the very beginning of this clip for example. I think more stuff like this needs to be utilised

>>258906943Quite the opposite. I was very excited to watch The Thing finally and was a bit disappointed.

Where from my post did you extrapolate that I think "today's acting" is good? Trust me, I don't. Alien is three years older than The Thing and has great acting. I was just referring to The Thing's use of cheesey, hammy acting that was prevalent throughout that era of film. It works for a lot of movies, but not really for horror that wants you to take it seriously.

At that point, Lovecraft either does something cool and interesting like in The Lurking Fear where the horrific face-eating monsters turn out to be the long lost Martense family, inbred and twisted beyond recognition into apelike monstrosities, or he goes full retard and does the old

>And then the monster appeared before me>By the way I'm insane now so I can describe that to you>Since only insane people can understand, you see>Except I can't describe it to you>Because it was just THAT SPOOKY AND INDESCRIBABLE THAT I CAN'T DESCRIBE IT

Having something be indescribable in a story can be like "wow that's pretty messed up," but having that cop-out appear in a lot of his stories, which is really obvious if you read a lot of HP's work back-to-back, it's pretty fucking lame.

>>258908412>Because for something to be there it need to fucking appear in front of your face and go "BOOO!!"?

What do you intend then? There are some horror games where things just appear, or are just *there* and are fairly startling by themselves, no audio or musical cue, but some would still class those as jump scares.

Jump scares are acceptable provided they're backed up by the tension set up in the game. Overusing them or simply going for Doom 3 Monster Closet scares is cheap and lazy though.

>>258907951You can't be scared by atmosphere if you're fearless. Fear comes from a sense of danger.

Most people are afraid of the dark not because the dark is spooky, but because of what could be inside it. Not knowing what could happen and fear of uncertainty. There are two kinds of people. Some fear uncertainty, some fear immediate danger. That's why some people like paranormal movies and others prefer slashers.

It goes down to a principle of the mind. Those who fear uncertainty feel at ease with things they can explain. They don't fear serial killers because they *know* they're still human. They know they can make flaws. They can UNDERSTAND what's going after them, and they know it can be stopped. When something out of the ordinary appears, they lose their shit, because they don't understand it, and they fear the unknown. That's why atmosphere plays a huge role in scary games. The continuous feel of dread hovering over your shoulder reminding you that you shouldn't be there instead of the constant enemy popping up every now and then.

>>258904204The word you're looking for is startled. Being startled is very different to being scared. Jump scares may startle you, but they won't put actual fear into you like a good horror movie/game will.

A 'scare' is abrupt all the time.What people complain about regarding modern horror games is that their entire horror scheme comes from jump scares, setting up jump scares and creating the expectation of a jump scare and then denying it.

Good horror comes from ambiance and growing fear generated by unsettling scenarios etc.

>>258905332>Like when that guy catches you in the locker and tries to make you into a woman.when was that? was that in the dlc? Because i still need to play that, I already beat the game might as well beat the dlc too

Real good horror is something so terrifying, unthinkable, and grotesque that you reel in sustained and chronic terror. Like something coming for you and feeling helpless to stop it only able to keep a few inches out of it's reach, not knowing when some obstacle will slow you down JUST enough for it to catch you. Or being dropped into a vat of something you have an aversion to. Or being confronted by some thing you'd like to avoid so desperately that you go blind with fear and scrabble and thrash around trying to escape.

>>258908728Exactly, Lovecraft resorted to "it was so scary that I went insane and now I can't describe it" endings too often. He was great at creating an impending sense of terror but regularly ended stories without telling what the source of that fear was and while that's par for the course given that his main theme was the idea that there are profound and terrifying things beyond our understanding, it didn't always translate well in his narratives.

Read "The Shadow over Innsmouth" or "The Hound" for examples of his better writing, you get a feeling of something horrible coming and there's the pay-off at the end.

Not that guy, but this is what I was talking about in >>258906930. You CAN know almost for a fact that nothing really bad is gonna happen if there's a precedent, if the game has already strongly indicated that every "threat" is just a joke that can be very easily dealt with or escaped.

Mind you, an excellent horror game would lure you into that false sense of security and unleash the danger when you least expect it. But I've never seen one do that. It's just a one-time trick, anyway.

>>258909287Calm down anon. I agree with you that they're different, I'm just pointing out that there's a lot of disagreement in this thread between definitions and what is appropriate for horror.

However, do you think - generally speaking - building up a sense of dread through a creepy, silent environment should simply stay that way, have a payoff in the vein of simply noticing something that startles you, or that jumpscares are acceptable from time to time in those situations?

Surely you aren't one of those people that believe all jump scares are bad 100% of the time.

>>258892052>I know absolutely nothing about horrorPic related is enough to make you shit your pants in context.Being loud and obnoxious isn't scary, it's just startling. 5 Nights at Freddy's would be great if it weren't for the needlessly loud screeching right in your face if they make it to the room.

>>258902514Because Outlast was not only a good horror game but an actual good stand alone game too, the devs actually knew what the fuck they were doing and the whole thing doesn't pride itself on shitty jumpscares. One of my favorite games of this year for sure.

Trust me I don't use the term autistic much, but that one post fucking earned it.

>Because for something to be there it need to fucking appear in front of your face and go "BOOO!!"?

It doesn't have to be as blatant as that, but it needs to at least attempt to surprise you in some manner, otherwise it is not going to amount to anything and you therefore would have no reason at all to be scared in the first place.

>Are you fucking stupid? How do you know nothing is going to come out?

Well that's the funny thing about it, people argue that a game should not attempt to scare the player, and instead have the player's imagination of what would be out there scare them. But, in order for that to work the player needs to believe something is going to happen in the first place.... which by their own argument is shitty horror. Who the fuck buys a game under the assumption it is by their own definition shit?

>>258909863No, I think a jumpscare can be earned, when it is set up well, not when it just appears out of fucking nowhere, like having everything very nice and peaceful just to drop a really loud music sting.

>>258908728agreed. I'd also like to add the the themes of Lovecraft's works haven't aged well. Lovecraft's work have a prevalent theme of humanity is tiny, that the things you think and feel are an incomprehensibly tiny dot in the grand cosmos.

A concept like this might have been mind-blowing in the 20s, but if you tell someone in 2014 that he's just a hairless ape clinging to the side of a tiny spinning rock an indifferent universe, his reaction is probably something like, "Well, obviously, what's your point?" The concept hasn't aged.

>>258909846Not exactly a horror game, but the Tank breaking into the safe house for the first time in L4D obliterates whatever feeling of safety you'll have in the game. Same with SH4 and the invincible, room-hopping always-on-your-ass enemies.

Ok, I'm tired of people acting like hardcore badasses in this thread in regards to judging horror.>THE SHINING>THE EXORCISTguess which of those films legitimately managed to scare me past the age of 10.Protip. Neither.Do they build dread? A sense of apprehension? Sure. But in all honesty they're no more effective at "scaring" than the next Freddy Kreuger or slasher flick.

I suppose this whole thread is a subtle jab at P.T, and I'm pissed that people's vision of horror is so narrow on video games that it must be either>jump scare or>PSEUDO INTELLECTUAL HIPSTER BULLSHITCatherine is a horror game. Catherine is a -damn- good horror game. Marriage terrifies me.

But P.T fucking got me. I'm honestly -ashamed- to say it did. >walking down corridor>no music playing>my shadow has changed, not sure if its me or the ghost>get closer>notice it has to be the ghost, neck is creaking>I KNOW YOU'RE THERE>turn around, nothing>turn back around>"oh hai mark!"I literally jumped. Well played Kojima.

>>258892052Something that disturbs you on a deep psychological level, gives you nightmares, makes you look over your shoulder constantly, sleep with the lights on.Anything that makes the fear carry on in real life hours after you've stopped playing.Basically, the best horror games are the ones that are psychologically damaging.

Jump scares are like going through a carnival haunted house with props that jump out and make a spooky sound.True horror is like having a flash mob pull a multi-day hidden camera prank on you where you believe you're one of the last survivors of a horrible plague and the prank only ends when you go through all the Stages of Grief.

A good scare is suspension of belief. Every thing that people are afraid of is something that is unknown to that person, for example a person who has never been stung is going to be a lot more afraid of bees than a person who has. So you have to keep the feeling that the player is in danger while holding of on exposing the danger.

>>258910378this is taking it to extremes but the general idea is correctfear that persists and makes you feel uneasy beyond the scope of the game itselfdead space 1 did that for me>telegraphed monsters so very few jump scares>constant distant whispering, singing>when you can make out the whispering it's reading personnel files of the entire crew in a matter-of-fact toneshit like that is excellent and disturbing on an atmospheric level

>>258904241>But with the 90s'-esque pre-rendered graphics, they couldn't possibly make a gory scene that's realistic and not ridiculously fake looking

Then you use artful direction and camera angles.

Show the process from an odd camera angle that shows the thing that grabbed you visibly struggling to shove something into an empty suit. It could be an 8 frame animation with a sound recorded beforehand of breaking chicken bones, tearing the ribcage from a chicken carcass, and mashing the a sopping wet BBQ sauce covered chicken into a small container.

This is an argument that transcends video games and applies to visual media as a whole. It wasn't hard to define horror when novels were the main form of entertainment. Horror was installing dread and fear in your reader. It's a wide definition but it's easy to tell what is and isn't it.

But visual media changed things. You can make movies that fit the old definition, but you can also have movies devoid of dread or fear that are simply loud and startling, and those can be horror movies. You couldn't really just put AND THEN A SPOOKY SKELEY POPPED OUT in huge text in a novel and expect to scare anyone. Startling your audience in a written form requires playing with their expectations, it takes a lot of work.

So basically it boils down to: do we really need to apply the old definition of horror to mediums capable of different things? Is a game not a horror game because it scares it's audience in ways that traditional horror didn't have access to, like sound or pictures?

I think jump scares are a legitimate form of horror, but alternatives DO exist, OP. They've existed for hundreds of years. Horror didn't just start existing when jump scares became possible.

Babysitter Bloodbath is a horror game where you are trapped in a house that has no power with a Michael Myers inspired murdererThe game plays like the old school Resident Evil games and while he can jump in front of you, there's no jumpscare scream bullshit, it's just naturally scary

Casuals enjoy amnesia-tier 'MUH SPOOKS RUN AWAY.' With no means of defense, you are playing a game featuring a floating camera that records spooky things so you get to feel your itty bitty adwenaline wush so you can feel like a big boy.

Guns, the flash of a camera, throwing chairs at sledgehammer wielding nigh-invincible psychopaths - Player Agency is fucking important in a videogame. Don't be so damn toxic to the genre.

>>258907637Meh, I have a different taste in horror than you then, Im more of a fan of things like War of the Worlds (the original, not the shitty movie), Day of the Triffids, the I am Legend book, things like that

>>258900580What made The Shining scary is context. In the first sequence, you see the Torrance family driving along that long as fuck road with no civilization in sight. At the checkpoint, they explain to Jack that the reason they need to look after the hotel instead of turning it into a ski resort is because there's a 25 mile stretch of road and with 20 feet of snow a year, clearing it off the road would be insanely expensive.When the shit hits the fan, you know help probably isn't coming.Another thing that made it scary is the mind-game it plays, when something weird happens, you have to think "Is this the shining, supernatural, or is it Jack hallucinating?" You have no idea what you're dealing with at any given time.

>>258911192DS2 still has some decent ambience. Even DS3 has some okay ambience. DS1 blows both of them out of the water either way.

The big problem with DS3 is its fucking soundtrack. Whatever genius was behind mixing the audio levels decided that the musical score had to be THE LOUDEST THING AT ALL TIMES SO YOU KNOW THINGS ARE DANGEROUS AND COOL LIKE IN THE MICHAEL BAYS.

Turning off the soundtrack in ALL Dead Space games makes them way better, because the great work the sound designers did on the environmental noises really shines.

The Library in Metro 2033 is a good example I can think of. The very first thing you see when you start the level is a librarian just standing there. You approach and it turns around and stares at you. And you stare at it. And keep staring at it, because you're told that it confuses them. So it is confused for a few seconds and turns around, and you RUN. You understand that you have to run from them because they are bullet sponges and hit like trucks, and ammo is not cheap.The entirety of the level consists of navigating the run down, maze like library, and you always see glimpses of the librarians through the holes in the walls, ceilings or open doors. Any direct encounter instantly brings tension and requires you to stare at them then run.There is one jump scare there, when you pick some ammo from a hole in the wall, and it's expected because of the growling and the hole obviously leading to the corridor behind the wall.

>>258911192>tfw fully immersed and mentally putting myself in isaac's boots and these whispers start coming over the PA system on a ship full of corpses and horrible monsters

>>258912061Yeah, DS2 was alright at times, but it was waaaay action-focused by comparison. I like long lulls to drink in the atrmosphere and get properly unnerved with quick and sparse action beats to break it up, and DS flipped that formula on its head.DS3, I never actually played. From what I saw, it was more like Gears of War than Dead Space, and thus totally uninteresting to me.

Scary to me CAN involve jump scares, but the jump scares alone aren't enough, as it's just the equivalent of a brother hiding in the closet going "Boo!"

Nah, scary to me is when you know something is out there and you know it wants to get you, but it doesn't do anything! That's what scary is to me. And it can end in a jump scare all it wants, as long as there's a foreboding sense of despair and fear that clings on to you for a good while before then.

>>258911926This guy is correct. What no one has actually said in this thread so far is that fear, in all its forms is birthed from a loss of control or presumed control.

In Silent Hill 2 you go from a controlled environment with a car and a view of Silent Hill into a long winding road with fog; you have lost control over your sense of security, sense of familiarity and sense of location.

In Alien, the metaphorical male-rape-birth scenes cause you to lose control of your pre-established notions.

The human mind is obsessed with control; we automatically assign things to boxes and categories and "round things up" to achieve extreme confidence. When those assumptions are somehow undermined, the only response is fear. Use whatever words you want; "dread", "terror", whatever. There are no true classifications.

>>258892052Horror is subjective; what could be hilarious to someone might be terrifying to the next person.

Sometimes it seems like some games think "jump scares" are the best way to pull off horror, and its almost easy to do it (I mean, otherwise why would so many screamers exist).

Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people now think 'jump scares' are bad overall, which I disagree with. There's no real point to great atmosphere and brooding horror if there's no payoff or real danger. I loved FEAR, but I felt that was a prime example. Later, when supernatural enemies started showing up they were easy to kill; they provided no real threat, which ruined the horror part.

There's an egglike game featuring shrek. At one point, there is a quote from the movie played at 2000% volume after complete silence. You will be startled by it, because it is loud. Does that make it a scary game?

>>258912619DS3 doesn't have too many Gears-of-War parts to be honest. I can think of about...Five sections in the game, all of which are about five minutes out of several hour long parts.

The problem is that they didn't deliver any interesting new necromorphs, they took out way too many necromorphs, and they tried to do this thing with finding a planet that had already been infected years ago, meaning the necros are aged and green-looking, but they just look like they all fell into a big vat of paint.

DS3 screams that the devs wanted to make something befitting the series, but the EA suits got all over it. It's still a very good game in its own right, but it falls short compared to the other two.

It also featured the same chinese knock-off version of Isaac's Engineering RIG that Dead Space 2 had, and I can never forgive them for making it look so shitty compared to the GOD TIER appearance DS1's RIG had.

>>258912619>Yeah, DS2 was alright at times, but it was waaaay action-focused by comparison

I honestly was surprised how much I enjoyed DS2, what I had heard about the action focus had put me off initially; I ended up enjoying it more than 1, and that usually doesn't happen regarding the type of horror games I like. I can't say I disagree with people that didn't like the change though.

Having a gun and being able to blow everything in the face takes away from any amount of scariness a game might have. Like I said not fucking everything needs to have your character magically being a pro fighter or the greatest shot ever, Outlast was a great change of pace made by competent devs who actually knew a thing or two about horror. Hiding and sneaking away from beings/creatures who are clearly way stronger and a bigger threat than you are makes it way more immersive.

>>258913348I think almost everyone agrees that DS3 is a game that could have been an outstanding game, but EA forced way too much shit on them. Even still, Visceral did the best with the cards they were dealt.Unfortunately the cards they were dealt were a 7, a yu gi oh card, $5 monopoly money, a jenga block and a paperclip.

I will be very surprised if no one has mentioned Amnesia's wandering horrors yet. It wasn't the jump that scared you - it was the knowledge that those fuckers could wander over to where you were hiding at any time and fuck you up.

I think looking away from anything in Amnesia as long as you weren't in plain view was too easy, hell sometimes you could be in essentially plain view as long as you weren't looking in the spook's general direction.

>>258913589Well I guess i'm referring to the aspect of what the writer is writing becoming true.

In terms of horror I believe Secret Window, Secret Garden did this, which was a novella by stephen king and later a movie with Johnny Depp. Regarding King, elements of that idea come into play with his Dark Tower series (which isn't horror, its basically every genre) with mixed success.

I know random detective stories have done it before as well, I'm pretty sure Castle was based off that premise.

It's a requirement if you're gonna be using a facecam, how else are you gonna appeal to the young demographic and make the big bux

It actually is a shame because some people like Markiplier change so much once they get popular into some completely different and fabricated persona and come across as tryhard unbareable fagets to people not in the targeted age groups.

>>258915326I imagine people like those you describe aren't entirely insufferable faggots in real life, but once you've obtained a demographic, you have a persona to maintain to keep that demographic coming back.

>>258892052Is this your first fucking game or something?Using this shovelware as an example of horror because it resembles your favorite spooky house carnival ride is retarded. Don't call people autistic when you don't know anything about the genre.

>>258892052Jump scares do nothing for me. Straight horror is boring what gets me is atmosphere. Creepy sounds mixed with a creepy environment are what get me. For, example after the blair witch project came out me and some friends went to a local 'haunted forest.' We heard some noises that I'm sure were just some random animals but ever so often we could swear we heard someone talking, like they were just out of range but close enough.. we looked and looked and looked eventually we found an old shack.. it was obvious someone had been in it recently.. so we decide we'll sleep in it for the night. Nothing happens we wake up. We leave. We go back like a week or two later and there is a note that says, 'I saw you sleeping. Stay away.' Never went back. I'm black. It took a lot for me to do that white people shit in the first place.

>>258916509>>258916834The issue is, this real shit is very hard to put into a game, because you can only get immersed so much, you will always know its just a game, even if its just a small part of you knowing that, since you lack senses some of the senses

>>258917302Definitely. Real shit tends not to work too well in vidya. Unless it's part of introducing you to things getting weirder.

Throwing a player right into "EVERYTHING IS AWFUL AND SCARY AHHH" can throw people right off and make them very aware that they're in vidya. Subtle progression like a note or an implication of weird shit going on is a good way to instill dread.

>>258917637I think one of the most important things to do, that to my recollection no game has ever done, isnt even about the game really, its about how they describe it. Lets say I was making a horror game about Day of the Triffids. If I call it Day of the Triffids players know exactly whats going on, who they enemy is, ect... If I call it 'Blindness' and as a description just put 'You have suddenly woken up to find you and everyone else blind. You wake up to screaming outside...' then players dont know whats happening, who the enemy is, I might say they touch a plant and they dont know what the significance of that is. Thats just one way to get the real life feel more into games, but it can never be fully done.

>>258917302Not true at all. Amnesia, did a great job of atmosphere. Hell, TLoU had some moments that shook my bones. Like the bit in the basement of the hotel. My first time through I was actually worried about going around corners.. and then once they come down there you can hear them but you can't see them because they just sit there waiting for you. It was knowing that; that creeped me out more than anything else.

>>258892052Usually the feeling of powerlessness and being confined in a small space.Combine that with an ominous figure popping up in the distance, not just in front of you, that's after you.No music.Quiet, low notesscreen shakes when the attacker gets closeOr you know, just be a faggot like you are and just have things pop up going oogey boogey or whatever.

>all jump scares are badThat's not what they're saying at all.A jump scare is a tactic that's employed commonly in horror to keep your attention and link the terrifying things in the show to your fight or flight response. The issue is that some people, like the developers of [email protected], think that a jump scare is all that's fucking necessary to make a horror game memorable. The concept of making completely innocuous things act like Lovecraft-style horrors and accompanying them with stuff like flickering telepathic images and over-the-top violence is now at the point of cliche. This game would be considered comedy, if it weren't for the fact that it actively tries to startle you. Does it scare you? Yeah, but just about anything can scare you in this way. Your kid could pop out of a box that you're getting ready to riffle through and give you a heart attack. That doesn't mean that it's particularly horrifying.

>>258918720You're wrong, being scared and being fully immersed are two completely different things, and you can never be fully immersed in a video game, at least not with current technology, because of the technicalities of actually play the game with a keyboard and mouse, as well as the lack of senses such as smell, taste (since taste derives from smell, you usually have a certain taste in your mouth from certain places. A dusty place will give a taste for example), and most important, touch. Im not saying you cant be scared of a game, but you can never feel fully immersed, and you will never get the same kind of fear from a game as you do real life.

>>258919687Jeeper's Creepers terrified the fuck out of me, when I was little.>immortal aerial predator that's strong enough to tear the roof from a car>does the aerial predator thing and caries you back to its nestnope

>>258893902Jump scares create fear of more jump scares. Before the first jump scare if the movie/game is done right then the atmosphere causes fear of the unknown. Jump scares startle you and then you fear being startled again. When people say jump scares aren't really scary or aren't real horror then they probably appreciate pyschological horror more which causes a feeling of fear and unnerves you without the use of sudden noises or visuals.Both of these can be used to succesfully create a good horror experience and sometimes people prefer one over the other.

But you have to admit that the plaster mannequin area was pretty well done.

You pass through a room with all the mannequins, when you pass through again, they are all gone. Starts the build up and the uneasiness. Then comes the basement, where there are mannequins scattered around. You start walking, hear something behind you, and there is a mannequin, which turns out to be an enemy.

>>258909254Started reading Season To Taste after the recommendation of a friend, it's pretty good so far and the descriptions of the protagonist hacking apart, cooking, and then eating her husband whom she murdered are gut wrenching.

Regarding games, I think terror is more effective than horror. To me the horror is the pay off of a good build up of suspense and waiting; the possibility of what can happen is more frightening than the actual pay off itself.

>>258892052>>258919196>>258921120The thing with 5naf is that it keeps you on edge all the time, scaring you of possible jump scares. It's really what people who're sick of cheap jump scares keep asking for.Even if you never fail so you actually get the jump scares, the game is scary because of tension, creepiness and the feeling of vulnerability.

There was not a single jump scare in Blair Witch Project and it is still widely regarded as one of the best horror films ever. How is this even an argument? You don't have to OOGA BOOGA to scare someone. You've never been scared of a situation?

>>258908002thats exactly what she does, if you'd played it you'd know that. you can't see her from the shadows on youtube videos because people got their brightness all fucked or the video is compressed or some shit

There aren't any games I know of that manage to be scary without at least the threat of abruptly getting your shit wrecked. The problem is that devs forget the existence of anything but "jump scares," and so every single corridor MUST have something to jump out at you, fall over, make your screen shake, or just suddenly play a very loud violin note for no fucking reason at all.

>>258922878>get 4 notes without any problem>see slenderman>BUMMMMM>run away>spend rest of game decently avoiding him>at 7 notes trying to find the 8th>suddenly turned around for no reason>OH MAN U DIED U FUGGD UP DIDN'T UThat's a shitty jump scare and a shitty game mechanic, I don't know if Arrival removed this but like fuck I'm gonna buy it to find out.

>>258925192Yeah, people talk about wanting gore in the game and I think that's totally unnecessary and misses the point.

In horror less is usually more. And that definitely applies here. Like I guess I've become immune to jumpscares or whatever but the scariest things about the game is the lore and all the little details. It's a slow burn type of thing that keeps you thinking for days after playing it. Having you realize horrifying shit about the game randomly when you're trying to go to sleep one night.